Journey into the Interior of the Earth

Chapter XVI

Boldly down the Crater

Supper was rapidly devoured, and the little company
housed themselves as best they could. The bed was hard, the shelter not
very substantial, and our position an anxious one, at five thousand feet
above the sea level. Yet I slept particularly well; it was one of the
best nights I had ever had, and I did not even dream.

Next morning we awoke half frozen by the sharp keen air, but with the
light of a splendid sun. I rose from my granite bed and went out to enjoy
the magnificent spectacle that lay unrolled before me.

I stood on the very summit of the southernmost of Snæfell's peaks. The
range of the eye extended over the whole island. By an optical law which
obtains at all great heights, the shores seemed raised and the centre
depressed. It seemed as if one of Helbesmer's raised maps lay at my feet.
I could see deep valleys intersecting each other in every direction,
precipices like low walls, lakes reduced to ponds, rivers abbreviated
into streams. On my right were numberless glaciers and innumerable peaks,
some plumed with feathery clouds of smoke. The undulating surface of
these endless mountains, crested with sheets of snow, reminded one of a
stormy sea. If I looked westward, there the ocean lay spread out in all
its magnificence, like a mere continuation of those flock-like summits.
The eye could hardly tell where the snowy ridges ended and the foaming
waves began.

I was thus steeped in the marvellous ecstasy which all high summits
develop in the mind; and now without giddiness, for I was beginning to be
accustomed to these sublime aspects of nature. My dazzled eyes were
bathed in the bright flood of the solar rays. I was forgetting where and
who I was, to live the life of elves and sylphs, the fanciful creation of
Scandinavian superstitions. I felt intoxicated with the sublime pleasure
of lofty elevations without thinking of the profound abysses into which I
was shortly to be plunged. But I was brought back to the realities of
things by the arrival of Hans and the Professor, who joined me on the
summit.

My uncle pointed out to me in the far west a light steam or mist, a
semblance of land, which bounded the distant horizon of waters.

“Greenland!” said he.

“Greenland?” I cried.

“Yes; we are only thirty-five leagues from it; and during thaws the white
bears, borne by the ice fields from the north, are carried even into
Iceland. But never mind that. Here we are at the top of Snæfell and here
are two peaks, one north and one south. Hans will tell us the name of
that on which we are now standing.”

The question being put, Hans replied:

“Scartaris.“

My uncle shot a triumphant glance at me.

“Now for the crater!” he cried.

The crater of Snæfell resembled an inverted cone, the openingof which
might be half a league in diameter. Its depth appeared to be about two
thousand feet. Imagine the aspect of such a reservoir, brim full and
running over with liquid fire amid the rolling thunder. The bottom of the
funnel was about 250 feet in circuit, so that the gentle slope allowed
its lower brim to be reached without much difficulty. Involuntarily I
compared the whole crater to an enormous erected mortar, and the
comparison put me in a terrible fright.

“What madness,” I thought, “to go down into a mortar, perhaps a loaded
mortar, to be shot up into the air at a moment's notice!”

But I did not try to back out of it. Hans with perfect coolness resumed
the lead, and I followed him without a word.

In order to facilitate the descent, Hans wound his way down the cone by a
spiral path. Our route lay amidst eruptive rocks, some of which, shaken
out of their loosened beds, rushed bounding down the abyss, and in their
fall awoke echoes remarkable for their loud and well-defined sharpness.

In certain parts of the cone there were glaciers. Here Hans advanced only
with extreme precaution, sounding his way with his iron-pointed pole, to
discover any crevasses in it. At particularly dubious passages we were
obliged to connect ourselves with each other by a long cord, in order
that any man who missed his footing might be held up by his companions.
This solid formation was prudent, but did not remove all danger.

Yet, notwithstanding the difficulties of the descent, down steeps unknown
to the guide, the journey was accomplished without accidents, except the
loss of a coil of rope, which escaped from the hands of an Icelander, and
took the shortest way to the bottom of the abyss.

At mid-day we arrived. I raised my head and saw straight above me the
upper aperture of the cone, framing a bit of sky of very small
circumference, but almost perfectly round. Just upon the edge appeared
the snowy peak of Saris, standing out sharp and clear against endless
space.

At the bottom of the crater were three chimneys, through which, in its
eruptions, Snæfell had driven forth fire and lava from its central
furnace. Each of these chimneys was a hundred feet in diameter. They
gaped before us right in our path. I had not the courage to look down
either of them. But Professor Liedenbrock had hastily surveyed all three;
he was panting, running from one to the other, gesticulating, and
uttering incoherent expressions. Hans and his comrades, seated upon loose
lava rocks, looked at him with asmuch wonder as they knew how to express,
and perhaps taking him for an escaped lunatic.

Suddenly my uncle uttered a cry. I thought his foot must have slipped and
that he had fallen down one of the holes. But, no; I saw him, with arms
outstretched and legs straddling wide apart, erect before a granite rock
that stood in the centre of the crater, just like a pedestal made ready
to receive a statue of Pluto. He stood like a man stupefied, but the
stupefaction soon gave way to delirious rapture.

“Axel, Axel,” he cried. “Come, come!”

I ran. Hans and the Icelanders never stirred.

“Look!” cried the Professor.

And, sharing his astonishment, but I think not his joy, I read on the
western face of the block, in Runic characters, half mouldered away with
lapse of ages, this thrice-accursed name:

“Arne Saknussemm!” replied my uncle. “Do you yet doubt?”

I made no answer; and I returned in silence to my lava seat in a state of
utter speechless consternation. Here was crushing evidence.

How long I remained plunged in agonizing reflections I cannot tell; all
that I know is, that on raising my head again, I saw only my uncle and
Hans at the bottom of the crater. The Icelanders had been dismissed, and
they were now descending the outer slopes of Snæfell to return to Stapi.

Hans slept peaceably at the foot of a rock, in a lava bed, where he had
found a suitable couch for himself; but my uncle was pacing around the
bottom of the crater like a wild beast in a cage. I had neither the wish
nor the strength to rise, and following the guide's example I went off
into an unhappy slumber, fancying I could hear ominous noises or feel
tremblings within the recesses of the mountain.

Thus the first night in the crater passed away.

The next morning, a grey, heavy, cloudy sky seemed to droop over the
summit of the cone. I did not know this first from the appearances of
nature, but I found it out by my uncle's impetuous wrath.

I soon found out the cause, and hope dawned again in my heart. For this
reason.

Of the three ways open before us, one had been taken by Saknussemm. The
indications of the learned Icelander hinted at in the cryptogram, pointed
to this fact that the shadow of Scartaris came to touch that particular
way during the latter days of the month of June.

That sharp peak might hence be considered as the gnomon of a vast sun
dial, the shadow projected from which on a certain day would point out
the road to the centre of the earth.

Now, no sun no shadow, and therefore no guide. Here was June 25. If the
sun was clouded for six days we must postpone our visit till next year.

My limited powers of description would fail, were I to attempt a picture
of the Professor's angry impatience. The day wore on, and no shadow came
to lay itself along the bottom of the crater. Hans did not move from the
spot he had selected; yet he must be asking himself what were we waiting
for, if he asked himself anything at all. My uncle spoke not a word to
me. His gaze, ever directed upwards, was lost in the grey and misty space
beyond.

On the 26th nothing yet. Rain mingled with snow was falling all day long.
Hans built a but of pieces of lava. I felt a malicious pleasure in
watching the thousand rills and cascades that came tumbling down the
sides of the cone, and the deafening continuous din awaked by every stone
against which they bounded.

My uncle's rage knew no bounds. It was enough to irritate a meeker man
than he; for it was foundering almost within the port.

But Heaven never sends unmixed grief, and for Professor Liedenbrock there
was a satisfaction in store proportioned to his desperate anxieties.

The next day the sky was again overcast; but on the 29th of June, the
last day but one of the month, with the change of the moon came a change
of weather. The sun poured a flood of light down the crater. Every
hillock, every rock and stone, every projecting surface, had its share of
the beaming torrent, and threw its shadow on the ground. Amongst them
all, Scartaris laid down his sharp-pointed angular shadow which began to
move slowly in the opposite direction to that of the radiant orb.

My uncle turned too, and followed it.

At noon, being at its least extent, it came and softly fell upon the edge
of the middle chimney.